A blog about lovely Waterlooville, a small, environmentally damaged town in Hampshire, UK. Waterlooville was founded after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, as troops from that conflict returned home and passed through Hampshire. Having grown from a small village to a suburban sprawl, Waterlooville faces serious environmental challenges today and in the future.

A failure of Taylor Wimpey and Havant Borough Council to create a hybrid and sustainable development has led to HBC councillors agreeing that no empoyment properties (other than shops) will be built at Wellington Park. Instead HBC councillors have approved the building of more homes and the councillors say there will be employment at the Dunsbury Hill Farm development.

It appears that developers and councillors are forcing the unsustainable developments of the past onto us today, they put little effort into creating new sustainable developments and instead fall back onto the idea of large housing estates built miles from any work place. Thus people are forced to drive to work which in turn requires the upgrading of unsustainable infrastructure to make it work.

Bad news. An establshed Waterlooville street tree has been felled. Photo of the Monterey Pine taken a few years ago. pic.twitter.com/HkE2AF8I42
— Havant Borough Trees (@HBTreeWardens) June 20, 2014

Also the Waterlooville Model Shop has closed.
The notice in the shop window says that the lease ran out and Paul the owner is looking for premises in Portsmouth. Sort of sums up Waterlooville, greedy landlords are shaping our future along with supporting councillors. What happened to the Conservatives 'localism' agenda? we seem to have the locally run councils just implementing the national government policies. The exact opposite of what they claimed localism is about.

Thursday, June 19

Did another day trip to the Isle of Wight recently.This time I took the fast passenger ferry to Ryde pier. From there I took the number 4 bus to East Cowes.Bus rides on the island are great fun because of the rural nature of the island.

Anyways the idea was to visit the Classic Boat Museum and Gallery. The bus stopped outside Waitrose and from there it was a short walk to the gallery.

The gallery is in the old British Hovercraft Corporation factory and is like a museum as well, with photos, paintings, newspaper articles, models and videos.

It's a short walk from the gallery to the museum where they have some unusual exhibits including the Bembridge Kestrel which has a propellor instead of a sail.

A rescue boat that was dropped from aircraft in WWII to save air crew and sailors who couldn't be reached quickly by ship.

Wednesday, June 18

Faces film will be premiered at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard this Friday evening. Kye Wilson (a successful local video artist) and Helena Eflerová created the film, so go and check it out. It will also be on show at various other locations later, including on the Big Screen at Portsmouth Guildhall Square.

Sunday, June 8

The brilliant Isentropic have posted this educational video about their new energy storage invention:

Remember though, if you vote UKIP, you are effectively voting against British innovations like this. A shut down of renewables development will see this type of innovation go elsewhere, like countless other British projects in the past.

Saturday, June 7

Locked up cycle carcass in Waterlooville. A few weeks ago (or months?) it had wheels, saddle and handle bars, but not a lot remaining now. When I first saw it, the frame was bent. I guess the nocturnal scavengers have been at it, communicating with their mobile antena and nibbling at the remains when the opportunity arises.

I assume the owner wasn't bothered as the frame was damaged, but how did the frame get bent like that? Why lock it to the cycle parking bar, knowing the frame is bent? Why not take it to the recycling centre instead?

Wednesday, June 4

Sticking with anti-science economics, the government pushes ahead with numerous 'brown' policies that ignore the facts that science presents us.

Todays policy announcements include the degrading of house building standards (having already been degraded in previous changes), which is probably the worst possible thing that could be done considering that any new housing stock will be around for a long time. Any reduction in standards would help increase/maintain carbon emissions for the period that the homes would be in use. The original plans were to get to a point where new homes would save emissions and reduce energy bills to about £40 a year.

On top of that they are pushing through law changes to allow fracking and associated pipes to be run under our homes without our consent. As I previously pointed, if the government pushed ahead with building the gas fired power station capacity previously outlined and used them like 'normal' power stations, carbon emissions would increase.

Far from giving more rights to us locally and allegedly being the greenest government ever, they prefer to resort to 1980s economics and increased fossil fuel use.